Love yourself

 

After last week’s article we received (amongst others) a very angry e-mail from a pastor who felt that I “mishandle scripture” when I point out that the Bible does not teach that we must love ourselves. What is the truth?

Nowhere do the scriptures teach that we must love ourselves. There is no such command or scripture in either the Hebrew Scriptures or the New Testament. The main argument for the love of self comes from a deduction based on two texts: Leviticus 19:18 which says “…You shall love your neighbor as yourself…” and Ephesians 5:28 which says “… husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies” Many preachers use these two verses to prove that we should love ourselves. The fact is these scriptures do not say anything of the sort. If you read one verse on from Ephesians 5:28, you will discover the Apostle says: “For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it…” This clearly explains the intention of that verse as well as that of Leviticus. We naturally love ourselves and are by nature self-centered but we should learn to love others and our wives with the same intensity with which we love and care for ourselves. These verses accept as a fact that we love ourselves, they do not encourage or even allude to the need for us to love self. I agree that there are a small minority of people who are subnormal and who do not care for themselves and who tend to be self-destructive. But even for these people the answer does not lie in learning to love themselves, but rather in the recognition of the fact that Christ can and wants to change them and make them new.

The second argument for this error is based on the fact that Christ paid such a high price for us which tells us how valuable we really are to God. If God thinks we are worthy of His Son’s death, then we should place the same value on ourselves. This is a total perversion of all of the teaching of scripture. We don’t even begin to understand how worthless and despicable we were before He saved us. "Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart." (Genesis 6:5-6). Did mankind increase in goodness after that? Definitely not. Yes, He paid an enormous price for us and we don’t even begin to understand the real cost, but it was not because we had any merit, but simply because of His great love towards us. That’s all. He died because He loved us, not because we were worth anything or had anything He needed. Yes, He wanted us, but He did not need us. He is complete in Himself and needs nothing. We all own things that we place a high value on, not because those things are valuable in and of themselves, but simply because they are valuable to us for sentimental reasons. So a photograph of a loved one may be very valuable to us, but will fetch not one cent on e-Bay. We are valuable simply because He chose to love us and die for us.

Let me just ask you this. If we were such wonderful people who had it all together, why did Jesus have to die to save us? Surely we just needed to discover and develop our good qualities and we could become just as good as Jesus. Well, the scary part is that that is exactly what is behind this teaching of self-love. We can all be just like God if we would only reach deep enough inside ourselves. It is exactly on this point that modern preachers find common ground with New Agers, Buddhists and Pagans.

The true message of the Gospel is this. All have sinned and come short of the Glory of God (Rom 3:23). In plain English – we have all missed it – none of us make the grade. Paul says we “were dead in trespasses and sins… and were by nature children of wrath” (Eph 2:1,3). In Ezekiel 16, the Lord paints a gory picture of where Israel was when God rescued her and how she became presumptuous, arrogant and independent of God. This picture also graphically explains where we all were.

But now that we have been saved and been made new, do we still not have anything in ourselves that can be loved? He has made us wonderful and new, surely we can love ourselves now, right? Wrong. What we have is by His grace alone – we are His workmanship and to love that is idolatry and brings down the judgment of God. "who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen." (Romans 1:25).

The whole problem lies with the fact that our focus is on self rather than on God. From the beginning He made it clear that He is to be loved and worshipped and that nothing else was to be given that adoration that belongs to Him alone. As long as we are obsessed with ourselves and our own puny lives, He will not get the attention He deserves. At one time mankind was so ignorant that we thought that the sun revolved around the earth and that the earth was the centre of the universe. One day we woke up and looked at the universe from another perspective and discovered that the earth in fact revolves around the sun and that we are but one of millions of planets – a mere speck in God’s infinity. The Roman church did not like this idea and tried, by decree, to keep the earth the centre and declared those who believed otherwise to be heretics. Well, it is no different today. It seems the majority of christians like to believe that God, salvation and the universe revolve around themselves. The small minority who argue for the truth that Christ is the centre and that all should revolve around Him, and that "He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all " (Ephesians 1:22, 23) are declared heretics.

As long as we are obsessed with ourselves, we have failed to recognize two very important truths. The first is that we are absolutely bankrupt in and of ourselves and that we have nothing to offer that is worth loving. The second and more important is that He is so wonderful, gracious and glorious that our total attention, love and adoration should be drawn in awe to the One who has the name which above every name and who is the fairest of ten thousand and the bright and morning star.

Outside our apartment window are huge, ugly utility lines. It would be foolish to spend time admiring the power lines when we can look beyond them and see the ever-changing hills. It’s time we got over ourselves and recognized that there is One who is far more worthy of discussion, devotion and admiration and that we should be totally absorbed with His beauty and glory. "To God our Savior, Who alone is wise, Be glory and majesty, Dominion and power, Both now and forever. Amen." (Jude 25)

 

 

Anton Bosch
antonbosch@sbcglobal.net

www.abcd.co.za/offi
www.abcd.co.za/plumbline
Tel 818 846 5520
Fax 818 846 4357
3310 West Magnolia Blvd
Burbank, California
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